You pass a Starbucks. At the corner, not 20 paces on, another one. It's not because, you think, the office workers and creative types in Westminster need a Starbucks within spitting distance of their desks. It's a trick. It's predatory. It's a way of squeezing the life out of independents. It's about conformity. And then one day after the plan has worked, bleary-eyed Londoners will have to walk twenty miles for a coffee, stand in blizzard queues that stretch all the way back to the Thames. All for a caffeine fix they won't enjoy because the air conditioning inside is colder than the frost outside and the sped-up Nora Jones CD is on a screeching, scoot-along-now loop.
You run your errand and walk toward Soho, where you plan to kill some time in a coffee shop before an evening meeting. You pass a Starbucks. Perched at a narrow shelf inside the window two trendy-looking people, a guy and a girl, smile at each other, and you wonder why anyone who otherwise looked so ironic-cool and assured would choose to sit in a Starbucks in central London where there are so many great independent places to try.
Tourists, you decide. People who don't know any better. All the more reason to head for something better, to the bohemian-casual Soho cafe that you particularly like, where creative people of all stripes gather without any see-and-be-seen silliness. Where they do such good banana smoothies. Where your name is on the birthday calendar in the loo.
And it's shut. Gone. "That's all folks, thank you, and goodbye."
You pause to absorb the news. You take a photo of your disbelief. You walk onward. You pass a Starbucks.
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